Written Answers Nos. 776-792
776. Deputy Michael Healy-Rae asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the status of an application with Tusla to open a school (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [54834/25]
View answerAs the subject matter of the Deputy's question relates to an operational matter for Tusla, I have referred the matter to them for a direct reply.
777. Deputy Barry Ward asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality for an update regarding the gradual reduction of childcare costs, as committed to in the Programme for Government; the steps she has taken to progress this policy; the timeline for the publication of an official plan in this regard; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [54848/25]
View answerThe Government is committed to ensuring access to affordable, quality early learning and care (ELC) and school-age childcare (SAC), with an investment of €1.48bn in the 2026 budget. This funding will allow my Department to build on recent progress in the gradual reduction of fees for parents, while also supporting supply and the quality of provision. New caps on maximum fees came into effect in September 2025 for all services in Core Funding, building on a range of enhancements to the National Childcare Scheme and Core Funding in recent years, reducing fees to parents.
Budget 2026 will enable Core Funding to continue to support fee-control measures, and will also allow for growth in the sector. The allocation for Core Funding in 2026 will ensure fees remain at 2021 levels for a majority of providers. As well as this, there will be a new maximum fee cap set to reduce costs for families paying the highest fees across the country. Further details of the new, lower maximum fee caps will be announced in the coming months.
The 2026 allocation for Core Funding will also support implementation of the recently announced Employment Regulation Orders (ERO), which will lead to a 10% increase in the minimum rate of pay for educators from 13 October.
There will also be enhancements in Year 5 of the scheme to improve pay for educators and school age childcare practitioners with implementation of new ERO.
Capital funding is also being made available in 2026 for the sector.
All of this will be detailed in the Action Plan on Accessible, High Quality, Affordable ELC and SAC, which my Department is continuing to develop. The Action Plan will be informed by a broad consultation process and will set out plans to achieve Programme for Government commitments, including the commitment to reduce maximum monthly fees to €200 over the lifetime of the Government.
778. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality if she will review the case of a non-verbal autistic child (details supplied), who has been neglected by the State in the non-provision of timely assessments, interventions and therapies; if she will commit to an immediate intervention to ensure this child is provided with the range of supports they urgently need; if her attention has been drawn to the impact this has had on the child and their family; if steps will be taken to ensure that the child receives the assessments they need as a matter of priority; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [54862/25]
View answerAs this question refers to the service matters, I have asked the Health Service Executive (HSE) to respond to the Deputy directly, as soon as possible.
779. Deputy Shane Moynihan asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality when she anticipates the new building blocks scheme will open for applications; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [54949/25]
View answerThe Building Blocks Extension Grant Scheme was launched in late 2024. The closing date for applications was 30th January 2025. There were four strands to the scheme: Community Construction, Community Extension, Community Purchasing and Private Extension. A total of 78 applications were received with 50 applicants were approved to progress to the next stage of the grant process.
As part of the National Development Plan review the allocation for my Department has increased to €795 million over the next five years. This increased funding will be used in part to provide additional early learning and childcare places through future capital programmes, which will primarily focus on implementing the commitment to capital investment in State-owned facilities. Making available a further round of funding to existing services to expand their provision will also be enabled by the NDP allocation.
This Department are currently finalising the details of future Building Blocks schemes and I expect to announce details in early 2026.
780. Deputy Shane Moynihan asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality if her Department have given any further consideration to improving flexibility in the NCS scheme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [54950/25]
View answerMany families use the National Childcare Scheme (NCS) to help reduce the cost of early learning and childcare. Under the Scheme, subsidies are awarded as an hourly rate, with a maximum number of weekly hours for which the subsidy applies.
The Scheme enables parents and services to agree on care arrangements as required. Discussion and agreement between parents and providers on the provision of childcare hours that suit individual families' needs, are a matter for parents and providers.
This system ensures public funds are used efficiently while recognising the real-life circumstances of families.
The NCS is designed to be flexible, recognising that children’s attendance may vary from week to week. Only if a child consistently attends fewer than their agreed hours for a consecutive 12-week period will the subsidy be reviewed. Specifically, if under-attendance is recorded for 8 weeks in a row, a warning will be issued. If the child then resumes full attendance for a week, no changes are made. However, if under-attendance continues for another 4 weeks, the award will be adjusted to reflect the average number of hours attended over the 12-week period.
Finally, an evaluation of the NCS is due to start this year. This evaluation will review how the Scheme has performed to date, the current ruleset and identify any potential enhancements that could be made to better support families. As part of this evaluation, the NCS attendance rules will be examined. Any changes to the NCS will be informed by a thorough review of international literature and comprehensive stakeholder engagement.
781. Deputy Albert Dolan asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality if there are any technical, legal, operational, or policy constraints preventing her Department, when publishing quarterly reports of payments or purchase orders over €20,000, from including additional columns that link each payment to its underlying procurement process specifically tender/contract title; name and address of the awarded contractor/supplier; contract award date; contract duration; expected contract value (excl. VAT); maximum contract value (excl. VAT); the unique identifier from the relevant contract award notice; and where such constraints exist, to provide details explaining her Department’s current process for reconciling each reported payment with the corresponding published contract award notice on eTenders. [55052/25]
View answerThe Department publishes quarterly reports of purchase orders over €20,000 in line with the Public Service Reform Plan 2011 commitment number 9.4 ("Every Purchase Order by a Government Department or Agency for €20,000 or over should be published online").
These reports are produced based on the information available on the Department’s Financial Management System (FMS). The system only facilitates the retrieval of purchase orders from an accounting rather than procurement perspective.
The Department’s quarterly reports are in line with current obligations and are based on a template commonly used by other civil service bodies.
782. Deputy Albert Dolan asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality if all contracting authorities under the aegis of her Department are in full compliance with Circular 05/2023, in particular the mandatory requirement to publish contract award notices for all contracts above €25,000; and if she will provide details of the monitoring or enforcement arrangements in place to ensure this requirement is met. [55069/25]
View answerI have forwarded this question on to all bodies under the aegis of this Department and they will respond directly to the Deputy.
783. Deputy Eamon Scanlon asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the funding opportunities available under her Department's remit to secure permanent funding for a play therapist at a family resource centre (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [55107/25]
View answerI can inform the Deputy that Tusla does not currently have any additional allocation for the provision of play therapy services at the Family Resource Centre concerned. Core Family Resource Centre funding, which is administered by Tusla, is designed to support the overall operation and delivery of family and community support activities, rather than to fund specific therapeutic posts.
Tusla has advised, however, that it would be happy to meet with Ballymote Family Resource Centre to discuss their requirements in more detail and explore whether there are any other possible avenues of support or collaboration that could assist the centre in maintaining elements of this service.
I trust this is of assistance to you.
784. Deputy Darren O'Rourke asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the person or body which is responsible for overseeing the operation of residential care services in a housing estate (details supplied); and the options available to local residents if they are affected by issues related to that service, such as anti-social behaviour, physical threats vandalism of property, and so on.; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [55140/25]
View answerAs this question relates to operational information held by Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, the question has been referred to the Agency to reply directly to the Deputy.
785. Deputy Darren O'Rourke asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the assessments carried out when identifying residential care service centres for minors; and the criteria that must be met for a property to be approved as one of these residential care service centres for minors. [55141/25]
View answerAs this question relates to operational information held by Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, the question has been referred to the Agency to reply directly to the Deputy.
786. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality to provide a list of all studies, research and reports commissioned by her Department that were outsourced, in each of the past five years, in tabular form; the names of the companies to which each study, research and report was outsourced; the total cost for each; the number of reports finalised and presented to her that have yet to be released by her Department; the dates on which any such reports yet to be released were first provided to her; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [55155/25]
View answerThe Department is currently collating the information requested and a reply will issue directly to the Deputy in this matter as soon as possible.
787. Deputy Grace Boland asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the current status of the national childcare strategy; when a formal strategy document is expected to be published; if stakeholder consultation has been completed; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [55253/25]
View answerThe Government is committed to ensuring access to affordable, quality early learning and care (ELC) and school-age childcare (SAC), with an investment of €1.48bn in the 2026 budget. This funding will allow my Department to build on recent progress in the gradual reduction of fees for parents, while also supporting supply and the quality of provision. New caps on maximum fees came into effect in September 2025 for all services in Core Funding, building on a range of enhancements to the National Childcare Scheme and Core Funding in recent years, reducing fees to parents.
Budget 2026 will enable Core Funding to continue to support fee-control measures, and will also allow for growth in the sector. The allocation for Core Funding in 2026 will ensure fees remain at 2021 levels for a majority of providers. As well as this, there will be a new maximum fee cap set to reduce costs for families paying the highest fees across the country. Further details of the new, lower maximum fee caps will be announced in the coming months.
The 2026 allocation for Core Funding will also support implementation of the recently announced Employment Regulation Orders (ERO), which will lead to a 10% increase in the minimum rate of pay for educators from 13 October.
There will also be enhancements in Year 5 of the scheme to improve pay for educators and school age childcare practitioners with implementation of new ERO.
Capital funding is also being made available in 2026 for the sector.
All of this will be detailed in the Action Plan on Accessible, High Quality, Affordable ELC and SAC, which the Department is continuing to develop. The Action Plan will be informed by a broad consultation process and will set out plans to achieve Programme for Government commitments, including the commitment to reduce maximum monthly fees to €200 over the lifetime of the Government.
788. Deputy Grace Boland asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality when the forward planning unit within her Department will publish outputs from its work on mapping childcare provision and identifying gaps; if this data will be made available, by county and constituency; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [55254/25]
View answerImproving access to quality and affordable Early Learning and Care and School Age Childcare is a key priority of Government.
A Forward Planning and Delivery Unit is undertaking important work to identify areas of need, forecast demand, and prepare for the delivery of public supply of early learning and childcare sector in areas where it is required.
A forward planning model is in development which will be central to this Department's plans to achieve the policy goals set out in the Programme for Government to build an affordable, high-quality, accessible early childhood education and care system, with State-led facilities adding capacity.
The development of the forward planning model is currently underway utilising the expertise of statisticians on secondment from the Central Statistics Office, GIS mappers and other specialists. The model seeks to identify the nature and volume of different types of early learning and childcare places across the country and how that aligns with the numbers of children in the corresponding age cohorts at local area level. An extensive data analysis and cleaning exercise has been undertaken to map available publicly subsidised supply. This involves combining data from multiple administrative sources, including child population data and applying mapping tools.
The analysis of the Forward Planning model will provide a key input into the approach to the capital programme to be resourced through the allocation in the revised National Development Plan 2026-30.
The Forward Planning model is being designed primarily as a tool for internal analysis. The maps and data that the model will produce will contain protected categories of data and will therefore not be made generally available in full. As the model is further developed along with accompanying policy work related to supply, aggregated statistics, including statistics broken down by geographical area, may be made available if this is deemed compliant with data protection obligations.
Overall, early learning and childcare capacity is increasing. Data from the Annual Early Years Sector Profile shows that the estimated number of enrolments has increased by 19% in the previous two years. Data on capacity at county level is available at www.pobal.ie/childcare/capacity/
789. Deputy Grace Boland asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the timeline for implementing targeted measures to address the deficit of childcare places in constituencies such as Dublin Fingal West; if capital investment or capacity-building supports are planned for areas with sustained population growth; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [55255/25]
View answerImproving access to quality and affordable Early Learning and Care and School Age Childcare is a key priority of Government.
Early learning and childcare capacity is increasing. Data from the Annual Early Years Sector Profile 2023/24 shows that the estimated number of enrolments increased by approximately 19% from the 2021/22 programme year. Core Funding application data shows that between Year 1 and Year 3 of the scheme, annual place hours increased by over 15%. The Tusla register of services demonstrates a net increase in the numbers of registered early learning and childcare services in 2024. However, it appears that demand for early learning and childcare remains higher than available supply in certain parts of the country, particularly for younger children.
Demand for early learning and childcare beyond sessional pre-school provision is highly elastic and shaped very substantially by families' individual composition, circumstances, and preferences; employment patterns and income; and the price and availability of services.
A Forward Planning and Delivery Unit in this Department is progressing an important programme of work focused on identifying areas of need, forecasting demand, and planning for the delivery public supply within the early learning and childcare sector where required.
A forward planning model is in development which will be central to the Department's plans to achieve the policy goals set out in the Programme for Government to build an affordable, high-quality, accessible early childhood education and care system, with State-led facilities adding capacity.
The Department continues to support the ongoing development and resourcing of Core Funding which has given rise to a significant expansion of places since the scheme was first introduced. Core Funding, which is in its fourth programme year, funds services based on the number of places available.
This provides stability to services, and reduces the risk associated with opening a new service or expanding an already existing service. For the third programme year (2024/25), the allocation for Core Funding allowed for a 6% increase in capacity. Budget 2025 secured funding for the fourth programme year (2025/6) to facilitate a further 3.5% increase from September 2025. Budget 2026 has made provision for the fifth programme year (2026/7) for a further expansion in supply of 4.2%.
This increased investment will allow increases in the natural growth of the sector driven both by new services joining the sector and existing services offering more places and/or longer hours to families.
The total allocation for Core Funding in 2026/2027 programme year will increase to €436.54 million, an additional €43.90 million on the current full year allocation.
The Government is also supporting the expansion of capacity through capital funding. The Building Blocks Extension Grant Scheme is designed to increase capacity in the 1–3-year-old, pre–Early Childhood Care and Education, age range for full day care. Core Funding Partner Services could apply for capital funding to physically extend their premises or to construct or purchase new premises.
Capital funding allocated to the early learning and childcare sector under the National Development Plan has enabled significant investment in early learning and childcare. This allows existing Core Funding Partner Services to extend their existing premises or, in the case of community services, to construct or purchase new premises. The Scheme will deliver up to 1,500 full-day care places for 1- to 3-year-olds. The shortlisted services are now working with the Chief State Solicitor’s Office in completing the legal formalities of the scheme. I look forward to seeing these projects progress over the coming months.
The Programme for Government commits for the first time to provide capital investment to build or purchase state-owned early learning and childcare facilities, to create additional capacity in areas where unmet need exists. State ownership of facilities is a very substantial and significant development and offers the potential for much greater scope to influence the nature and volume of provision available and to ensure better alignment with estimated demand. This work will be supported through capital investment under the revised National Development Plan.
The Department funds 30 City/County Childcare Committees, which provide support and assist families and early learning and childcare providers. The network of 30 City/County Childcare Committees across the country can assist in identifying vacant places in services for children and families who need them and engage proactively with services to explore possibilities for expansion among services, particularly where there is unmet need.
Parents experiencing difficulty in relation to their early learning and childcare needs should contact their local City/County Childcare Committee for assistance. Contact details for the Fingal County Childcare Committee may be found at https://fingalcountychildcare.ie
790. Deputy Grace Boland asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality when the building blocks capital grant scheme will be reopened; the eligibility criteria which will be appliable; the way her Department intends to prioritise areas with limited availability of places; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [55256/25]
View answerThe Building Blocks Extension Grant Scheme was launched on late 2024. The closing date for applications was 30th January. There were four strands to the scheme: Community Construction, Community Extension, Community Purchasing and Private Extension. A total of 78 applications were received with 50 applicants approved to progress to the next stage of the grant process.
As part of the National Development Plan review the allocation for my Department has increased to €795 million over the next five years. This increased funding will be used in part to provide additional early learning and childcare places through future capital programmes, which will primarily focus on implementing the commitment to capital investment in State-owned early learning and childcare facilities. Making available a further round of funding to existing services to expand their provision will also be enabled by the NDP allocation.
The Department will are currently finalising the details of future Building Blocks schemes and I expect to announce details in early 2026.
791. Deputy Grace Boland asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the way in which north county Dublin scored in the most recent round of allocations under the building blocks capacity grant scheme; if any applications from the area were successful; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [55257/25]
View answerThe Building Blocks Extension Grant Scheme was launched in late 2024. The closing date for applications was 30th January. There were four strands to the scheme: Community Construction, Community Extension, Community Purchasing and Private Extension.
A total of 78 applications were received with 50 successful applicants approved to progress to the next stage of the grant process.
One application was received from a service based in North County Dublin, under the Private Extension strand. This service was successful in their application and is currently undertaking the legal formalities of the scheme, supported by our colleagues in the Chief States Solicitors Office.
792. Deputy John Lahart asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality if she is aware of a rehabilitation programme based at DCU involving the use of exoskeleton technology to support individuals with mobility impairments; and if she will engage with the programme lead (details supplied) to explore potential funding options to sustain and expand this initiative. [55275/25]
View answerThis is a matter for my cabinet colleague, the Minister for Health.
